Words have consequences
by Jo McIntyre

The latest publication from Oregon Dept of Ag lists the June ODA Board Meeting as being on the 2nd and 3rd in Maupin. It also states that the Board members have placed on the agenda a discussion (by them) to change their role from the state-mandated "Advisory role" to a "Policy making role."
This note from Liz Van Leeuwen, one of Oregon Women for Ag's founding mothers, reminds me that I objected to the term "agriculture policy,' used by the speaker at our 2004 OWA convention.

Remember the ag professor who spoke at the dinner? He said in no uncertain terms: "Oregon needs an agriculture policy!" I thought he had lived in China too long before coming to the U.S.

I was going to write an essay then about why that was a bad idea, because of the political implications of the word 'policy,' but put it off. This news from Liz tells me I should have written it right away.

'Policy' usually means government creates the rules for the marketplace.

As a term of art, 'policy' is a term based on the ideas of leftist intellectuals who grew up, or whose parents grew up, in the thirties. Then, they pushed an 'Industrial Policy' in the U.S. and the USSR. Later, Mao Tse-Tung had a wonderful Industrial Policy - remember his steel mills in the back yard?

But, I digress.

We're already seeing some of Oregon's fledgling ag policy. Key planks include: focusing on farmers markets, rural tourism, and Buy Oregon, with vague, undefined words like sustainability and organic.

Vague, undefined, feel-good words are one of the hallmarks of leftist intellectuals writing 'policies.'

OSU is an early example of an ag policy. Land grant colleges were originally founded to foster agriculture and ag research.

Today, University administrators seem to have different objectives, as they hire professors who teach a kind of woo-woo urban environmentalism, based more on fear of the unknown than on solid science.

OSU concentrates more on high-tech engineering and business entrepreneurship, according to college press releases, while college ag programs are threatened with cuts.

Government officials usually start out doing something "helpful"

The ag community, led by our own Deanna Dyksterhuis and others, strenuously objected to the Buy Oregon bill. The Legislature wisely dropped it, but the Governor did a Clinton, and issued an executive order anyway.

The order requires state agencies to 'buy Oregon' ag products for prison and other state cafeterias.

As in most 'policy' development, the state will start adding requirements. They will require schools and other local government agencies to buy Oregon.

Then they'll start making rules for exactly what Oregon products will have to be bought. They'll add rules for how the products must be grown, harvested, stored and processed. Think: "organic." Think: jobs for friends of the governor.

All of the regulatory steps listed above were implied or written in the original Buy Oregon proposal.

Farmers markets see thousands of customers

Look at the how the state pushes farmers markets. Lovely idea, but of very little economic importance. All show, no grow.

A recent news release from ODA bragged that more and more farmers markets are being started - the number has grown from 10 to 64. Ooooh! Pardon my sarcasm. Let's see - how many grocery stores do we have in this state?

The number of Oregonians shopping at the farmers markets (held for 3-4 months every summer) comes to about 90,000 out of the 3 million plus population. I guess they'll go hungry the rest of the year. Most urban people probably don't know how to can food, much less grow it.

Farmers Market regulations prescribe what, how, when and where products may be sold and by whom.

At our last OWA board meeting in Junction City, we heard from a farmer in the Zielinski family who was trying to get farmers market regulations changed to allow him to sell pies made on his farm with berries grown on his farm!

That's just a tiny example of the regulations to expect in an 'agriculture policy.'

Wouldn't want it to turn into a successful restaurant or grocery store, would we? Even if the farmer was a smart entrepreneur responding to market forces, we'll regulate him to make sure he doesn't succeed TOO well.

Other programs point to politics

Rural tourism, rural Oregon policy offices, trips to Europe and Asia - these are favorite Democrat activities intended to show that Democrats 'care' about farmers and the rural populations.

These are attempts by Democrats to pull rural voters away from Republicans.

The result of all of this activity will be to make farmers lives even more difficult, spend more tax money, make state government even bigger, and pay off more political friends.

Lest anyone think this is a partisan issue, I'd like to point out that this behavior applies to Republicans as much as it does to Democrats. The Republicans may fight the policy, but they often later join it.

Each political party tries to buy off the supporters in the other party, so you will see political parties regularly changing sides on issues. Examples: Civil rights, war, federal aid to education, free trade v tariffs.

I suggest that we all re-read our excellent AAW positions, just published in The Voice - you'll see that our most complex positions relate to national ag policies and programs. I'd guess that many farmers, at one point, supported the programs that now oppress them.

But now that we are wiser (I refuse to say 'older'!), I hope we will think through the proposals we support and oppose and look for the long range problems that are bound to crop up. Even 'farmer-friendly' proposals have a tendency to turn nasty in just a few years!